Drinking Buddies – DVD review

Brewery colleagues flirt and teeter constantly on the brink of infidelity in this workplace drama

Joe Swanberg, 2013

Sony

As workplace chemistry threatens to turn into an affair, the unspoken question in writer/director Joe Swanberg’s drama is: “Am I with the wrong partner?”

Brewery colleagues Kate and Luke are hitched to Chris and Jill (not to each other), yet they endlessly flirt and banter, skirting round their obvious mutual attraction but teetering constantly on the brink of infidelity.

Like a US indie take on Chekhov, it’s what they don’t say – tension built on subtle facial expressions and tiny gestures – that creates a pervasive queasiness, and skilfully subverts all the usual rom-com conventions.

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